J.R.R. Tolkien translated and lectured on the medieval epic Beowulf.
Beowulf is an Old English heroic poem about the warrior Beowulf, who fights the monster Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and later a dragon. Tolkien was one of the twentieth century’s most influential Beowulf scholars. His 1936 lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” argued that the poem should be valued as a unified work of art rather than treated mainly as a source of historical information.
Tolkien also produced a prose translation of Beowulf, although it was not published during his lifetime. The translation and related commentary appeared posthumously in Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary in 2014, edited by his son Christopher Tolkien. Tolkien’s engagement with the poem influenced his understanding of heroic literature, monsters, courage, mortality, and the structure of legend.
Beowulf is an Old English poem, not a work by Geoffrey Chaucer or Dante. The Canterbury Tales and The Divine Comedy belong to later medieval literary traditions and were written in different languages and cultural settings.